In 1972, George McGovern won the Democratic presidential nomination at the party’s convention in Miami Beach.

In 1977, President Carter defended Supreme Court decisions limiting government payments for poor women’s abortions, saying, “There are many things in life that are not fair.”

In 1984, Democratic presidential candidate Walter F. Mondale announced he’d chosen U-S Representative Geraldine A. Ferraro of New York to be his running-mate; Ferraro was the first woman to run for vice president on a major-party ticket.

In 1985, doctors discovered what turned out to be a cancerous growth in President Reagan’s large intestine, prompting surgery the following day.

In 1993, 196 people were killed when an earthquake measuring a magnitude of seven-point-eight struck northern Japan.

Ten years ago: The House voted overwhelmingly to define marriage in federal law as a legal union of one man and one woman -- no matter what states might say. Hurricane Bertha slapped North Carolina’s Cape Fear, then moved on to batter a string of coastal towns.

Five years ago: Abner Louima, the Haitian immigrant tortured in a New York City police station, agreed to an eight-point-seven (m) million-dollar settlement.

One year ago: Mohammed Bouyeri, a Muslim extremist on trial in the slaying of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, unexpectedly confessed in court, saying he was driven by religious conviction. (Bouyeri was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.) Prince Albert the Second of Monaco acceded to the throne of a 700-year-old dynasty. Miguel Tejada and Mark Teixeira led the American League to a 7-to-5 win over the National League in Detroit for the A-L’s eighth straight All-Star victory.